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Wednesday November 16

After going hands-on with the Late-2016 13-inch MacBook Pro sans Touch Bar, I was finally able to spend some significant hands-on time with the real MacBook Pro for this generation, the Touch Bar-equipped version.

Outside of a few obvious differences, the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar shares the same form factor and design as the version without Apple’s fancy new input method. Therefore, I’m going to avoid rehashing topics that I’ve already covered, such as in-depth impressions of the keyboard, trackpad, display, build quality, etc. If you want a hands-on synopsis of the overall design of the Late-2016 MacBook Pro, then be sure to read our original hands-on post.

These impressions will focus on the areas that differentiate the Touch Bar-equipped MacBook Pro from the entry-level model. It is here where you’ll find my hands-on impressions of the Touch Bar,...

Apple is reportedly planning an App Store fee schedule revision that will see its slice of revenue from subscription video services, and potentially other non-video providers, drop from the customary 30 percent to only 15 percent.

Apple is reportedly planning to change how it handles subscriptions for video streaming services via the App Store. According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple will cut the percentage of revenue it takes from streaming video apps in an effort to improve its relationship with those in that industry…

It was revealed on Wednesday that longtime Apple Product Manager of Automation Technologies Sal Soghoian, whose work is responsible for services like AppleScript and Automator, will be leaving the company in December as his post was recently eliminated.

A new report out of The Information this evening outlines more details concerning Apple’s efforts when it moves to securing original content rights. The report, which reiterates some of what we already knew concerning Apple’s efforts, focuses on the company’s reserved and “quixotic” attitudes…

Correct. I joined Apple in January of 1997, almost twenty years ago, because of my profound belief that “the power of the computer should reside in the hands of the one using it.” That credo remains my truth to this day. Recently, I was informed that my position as Product Manager of Automation Technologies was eliminated for business reasons. Consequently, I am no longer employed by Apple Inc. But, I still believe my credo to be as true today as ever.

I’ve known Sal for years, and he is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. He cared about Apple and the user.

As it struggles to keep user growth up to par with services like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat, Twitter today is rolling out a new way to discover users. Announced in a tweet from a Twitter designer, users can now create custom QR codes to make it easier to follow and discover accounts…

As expected, Microsoft today made its Visual Studio developer environment available on macOS. The first preview of Visual Studio for Mac is live now, with Microsoft hoping that the cross-platform availability will push more developers to build for Windows.

According to TheStreet, analysts at the investment company Exane BNP Paribas think Apple is tooling up to create custom chips for its next generation of Mac laptops.

Apple is advertising 87 hardware engineering graphics roles, including 10 in London, according to Exane. A search of Apple's website found 62 of those roles, including eight in Apple's Hanover Street office in London.

The graphics job vacancies suggest that Apple is building a completely new chip design team, which in our experience points to a new application," Exane analysts David O'Conner and Jerome Ramel wrote in a note published Wednesday. "The need for computing, CPU and/or GPU skills could point to a custom Apple chip for the Apple MacBook. it is entirely plausible that Apple could produce a beefed up 7mm apps processor ... capable of powering a MacBook in 2018.”

A new report from research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners — as noted by 9to5Mac — shows that iPhone 7 and 7 Plus adoption outpaced that of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus during its first month of sales, although falling short of the iPhone 6/6 Plus launch.

“The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus launch falls between the wildly-successful iPhone 6 and 6 Plus launch in 2014, and the somewhat disappointing launch of the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus in 2015,” said Josh Lowitz, CIRP partner and co-founder. “The combined share for the 7 and 7 Plus launch is up slightly from the 71% share for the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus in 2015, and down considerably from the 81% share for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in 2014. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus benefitted from a new form factor, a larger screen, and the introduction of the even larger and premium-priced...

On a regular basis, Apple World Today posts a list of notable new apps or app updates that have been released. They may not necessarily be new, but they're popular and deserve mention. Here are today's picks.

macOS Apps/Updates

Bits&Coffee has released PhotoMarks 3, an update of the photo watermarking app for Macs and PCs, alongside PhotoMarks for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

The tool enables photographers, web designers, business people, and families, to protect their copyrighted images on any computer or iOS device they own. PhotoMarks 3 for the Mac can completely customize the appearance of text and logo marks, as well as perform additional edits like resize, rename, auto rotate, or decorate photos with graphical frames, all in the same session. It works by editing photos...

A new report from research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners today details Apple’s iPhone 7 and 7 Plus launch, showing some numbers that support the company’s continued claims of increasing Android switchers and more.

It also shows that the iPhone 7 adoption managed to outpace that of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus during its first month of sales, although falling short of the iPhone 6/6 Plus launch:more…

In the week since we last spoke, Susie reviewed the MacBook Pro models with the new Touch Bar. She finds the Touch Bar very useful, a refreshing change in how we use our Macs, and perfectly in line with technology's recent focus on putting the stuff you need in front of you when you need it.

Then Apple announced a vanity project that really stretches the word vanity: _Designed by Apple in California_, a coffee table book slash wordless design manual that could be a cool idea if the proceeds were going to any number of charities. (Spoiler: They are not.) So we share our feelings about that, and then extend the discussion to Apple's attitude overall lately. Let us know your thoughts, too.

If you have a new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, don’t think that putting your ears closer to the speaker grilles will make it sound louder. A recent teardown revealed that the grilles are just for show.

According to a teardown of the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar by iFixit, the speaker grilles don’t actually align with the internal speakers. In fact, the grilles don’t even go down through the case, which means that Apple put them next to the keyboard for purely “cosmetic” reasons. The sound on the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar actually comes out through the air vents on the sides.

Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai will meet in Brussels with EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager and Guenther Oettinger, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, as the final stop in a short tour of the continent, spokespeople for Google and the EU confirmed.

Google is some trouble in the EU and the situation could get much worse.

The Touch Bar input strip on new MacBook Pro models is itself a Retina Display, but it doesn't show up as a display in System Report. That's prompted Apple to create specialized support in its Grab app to enable capture of screenshots of its current status.

Apple authorized reseller B&H is taking triple digit discounts off select 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro models without a Touch Bar. On top of the instant savings, B&H will not collect sales tax on orders outside NY and expedited shipping is free. In total, shoppers can save $236-$408, making these the largest discounts we've seen on the new models to date.

On the sidelines of major announcements such as Microsoft joining the Linux Foundation, and Google joining the .NET Foundation, at its Connect(); 2016 developer conference, Microsoft also announced that it bringing Visual Studio for rival platform Mac. The company also announced a preview of the next version of SQL Server, and a preview of Azure App Service support for containers. From a Venture Beat report:"We want to help developers achieve more and capitalize on the industry's shift toward cloud-first and mobile-first experiences using the tools and platforms of their choice," Microsoft Cloud and enterprise executive vice president Scott Guthrie said in a statement. "By collaborating with the community to provide open, flexible, and intelligent tools and cloud services, we're helping every developer deliver unprecedented levels of innovation." The fact that Microsoft is bringing its IDE to macOS would have arguably been the biggest news of the day, had the company not leaked the...

The new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is the first of Apple’s Macs to include a Touch ID sensor built-in for Apple Pay, unlocking the Mac with your fingerprint, and authentication purposes in third-party apps.

Other Macs can use Apple Pay, but they need to use a nearby iPhone or Apple Watch to authenticate and complete the purchase.

Reiterated by a report on Wednesday, an executive for Valve's Steam digital delivery platform has declared that preliminary versions of the company's VR platform will be available for macOS and Linux very soon.

Apple’s in an interesting, but tough spot here. They could be the vehicle to bring original content to your home with Apple TV, or they could add their own original content and battle with Netflix and Amazon.

Allo is the future of Google’s messaging efforts, and the service has been furiously adding new features to make it a more fun and engaging place to have conversations.

The latest update takes advantage of the popularity surrounding the latest Harry Potter-franchise film, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. You can grab a sticker pack that adds in characters from the Harry Potter universe, something that’s sure to delight fans.

Additionally, Allo is bringing in background themes as promised, and will suggest emojis based on your conversation. When typing you can hit the “Smart Smiley” button for suggested emojis and stickers that may help you say what you want with a little more pizzazz.

Apple’s new flagship MacBook Pro replaces the function key row with a dynamic multi-touch display called Touch Bar. This new screen changes based on which app you’re currently using and enables quick access to additional functionality throughout macOS.

One example of this is how Touch Bar handles screenshots. Whether you’re using the system keyboard shortcuts to create a screenshot or using the optional screenshot button on Touch Bar, you can assign the app or folder where you want the screenshot to save to on-the-fly.

And since Touch Bar is actually a second display, you can create a screenshot of whatever Touch Bar is displaying using a new system keyboard shortcut…

Google Translate is rolling out a major upgrade that promises more human-like language translations.

Google is bullish on its Neural Machine Translation technology, claiming that it’s a bigger upgrade to the service than everything that’s been accomplished in the last ten years combined.

The company is rolling out the improvements to eight language pairs in Google search, the Translate apps, and the website. You’ll find the new technology behind translations between English and French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Turkish. Google says that makes up more than 35 percent of all language queries.

Apple has decisively transitioned its new MacBook Pros to use the slim, unidirectional new USB-C port first introduced on the Retina MacBook a year and a half ago. Its latest MacBook Pro machines not only supply more connectors, but also support the enhanced new USB 3.1 Gen 2 and Thunderbolt 3 protocols for blazing fast wired connectivity and high resolution displays.

With Apple both throwing its weight around to capture exclusives for video content -- and not willing to get in a bidding war with other streaming services for content -- Hollywood is said to be beginning to question the company's future intentions as a media venue.

Tucked in Amazon’s big Black Friday news this morning was the announcement of a handy Package X-Ray feature for its iPhone shopping app. The app can now leverage your iPhone’s camera to reveal the contents of an Amazon delivery without having to actually open up the package or hunt down tracking numbers.

Microsoft’s Connect developer conference kicked off Wednesday with some expected news: The next versions of the Visual Studio IDE have arrived on Windows and Mac. (Yep, you read that right.)

After a set of leaks from MSDN Magazine on Monday, the company officially confirmed Wednesday morning that it’s bestowing the Visual Studio brand on Xamarin Studio, a C# development environment for the Mac that the company acquired earlier this year when it bought the company of the same name. In addition, Microsoft’s confusingly named Visual Studio “15” has been officially renamed Visual Studio 2017 and given a release candidate at the show.

We live in a wonderful age where we no longer need to fill shelves with videotapes, vinyl albums, CDs, or DVDs. Most media is now available in digital formats that can bring the music or movie to life without taking up physical space. Our Apple World Today Deals Shop Deal of the Day is perfect for converting those videos that aren't available yet. It's the MacX Media Management Bundle ($19.95)!

The bundle consists of three powerful tools from Digiarty:

MacX DVD Ripper Pro ($59.95 value)

You'll need a SuperDrive or similar DVD-compatible drive for your Mac, and with that drive and MacX DVD Ripper Pro you'll have your DVD library converted to digital files in no time flat. MacX DVD Ripper Pro does much more than just grab DVD...

Announced back in September, Apple's completely wireless AirPods still do not have a concrete shipping date, though one international reseller claims they won't arrive this month, instead becoming available in December.

Just in time for the holiday travel season, Seagate’s rolling out a device built for on-the-go folks with an insatiable thirst for more space. Later in November, you’ll be able to pick-up a Seagate Backup Plus Portable drive with a whopping five terabytes of storage capacity. That’s enough room to store about 1,000 high-definition movies, or three AAA PC games. (Just kidding, you can probably store twenty or so.)

Seagate is setting the price for the 2.5-inch external hard drive at $190. It comes in a 0.8-inch thick aluminum case with color options in black, silver, red, or blue, so you can look stylish stashing files at the airport. The device uses USB 3.0, and Seagate says you can expect data transfer rates up to 120MB/s, which is the standard on Seagate’s portable and slim drives.

I’ve always upgraded my MacBooks. Usually, I would spec out my machine with the best processor and GPU, and couple that to the bare-bones RAM and drive, then upgrade those components myself to avoid the Apple premium. Sometimes I’d upgrade more than once during a machine’s lifetime.

My Late 2011 17-inch MacBook Pro, for example, was bought with 8GB RAM and a 750GB hard drive. I immediately upgraded the RAM to 16GB – a ten-minute task – and swapped out both the hard drive and optical drive for two 1TB hard drives. Later on, when SSD prices fell to more sensible levels, I swapped out the spinning metal drives for a couple of 1TB SSDs. In this way, the 17-inch machine I was reluctant to give up has remained remarkably usable even five years on.

That approach is no longer an option. The RAM has long been soldered on in MacBooks, and the past couple of days confirmed what I suspected about the new MacBook...

Global market research firm TrendForce estimates that global tablet shipments for 2016 will total around 154.5 million units, translating to an annual decline of 8.3%. However, Apple will remain the top tablet maker, though its market share is project to drop from 26.1% this year to 24.8% in 2017.

TrendForce thinks Apple will launch more affordable iPads to maintain its market share. Amazon made a splash in the tablet market with price-friendly products in 2015. Since then, Amazon’s tablet shipments rose sharply for two consecutive years, and its competitors have also shifted their focus on low-price models.

“To narrow Amazon’s lead in this particular segment, Apple will be introducing a more affordable 9.7-inch iPad device in the first quarter of 2017,” TrendForce notebook analyst Anita Wang says. “While this low-price model is expected to be the main driver of iPad shipments for the entire year, whether it will be a hit...

Apple’s new AirPods appear to take totally wireless earphones one step further than any competitor so far, but we can’t be too sure just yet because of the delayed release and impending launch. AirPods were originally set to release in late October, then Apple said it needed ‘a little more time’ to ensure they’re ready for customers.

We’re now moving past the iPhone 7 launch and into the holiday shopping season with no set launch date for AirPods, but there are a few guesses at just when we should expect to buy Apple’s new wireless earbuds …

Global notebook shipments for 2016 is estimated to decline by 4% compared with the prior year to around 157.9 million units, reports global research firm TrendForce. The good news for Apple: it’s expected to hold 8.3% of the notebook OS market next year as it benefits from shipments of the latest MacBook Pros. That will be up from 7.9% this year.

On a down note, notebook shipments will continue to fall next year as the LCD panel market experiences a structural supply shortage, according to TrendForce notebook analyst Anita Wang. Shipments of HD resolution (1366 x 768), Twisted Nematic (TN) panels for mainstream-size notebook displays will decrease by 10% between 2016 and 2017, she adds.

However,, Apple is unlikely to experience notebook panel shortage in the future because the brand is a major client of panel makers. The market share of Microsoft Windows, by contrast, will keep contracting in 2017 as other branded notebook...

I’ve been a fan of GraphicConverter for decades. It’s probably the first image editor I ever used on my Mac, back in 1994. The developer has been faithful to the app and the Mac community for more than 20 years. And he’s a really nice guy as well.

President-elect Donald Trump has pushed a protectionist proposal that could to force Apple "to build their damn computers and things in this country." It's a suggestion that has been outright dismissed by most observers -- but should it be?

Windows is the dominant computing platform for VR gaming right now. However, Valve will encourage wider operating system support by bringing a SteamVR beta to macOS and Linux systems "in the next few months,” according to a Hexus report.

Valve’s Joe Ludwig made the statement during a talk at the Steam Dev Days event in Seattle in October. He said that the company's view is that VR should be as open to innovation as possible and this would mean the elimination of platform “gatekeepers” such as Windows if it were the only platform to support VR entertainment and gaming. Developers and users are asking Valve for VR support on other operating systems, Ludwig said.

Valve is the creator of Steam, the game platform that distributes and manages thousands of games directly to a community of more than 65...

This week’s roundup of accessories includes the Spontaneous Pop-Up Display—portable enough to fit in your bag, big enough for gameplay and serious work. Read on!

Arovia Spontaneous

The Spontaneous Pop-Up Display (a $349 pledge on Kickstarter) is a nifty idea: It lets you create a large, desktop-monitor-sized display for your iOS device or MacBook—but does it with a device that’s a bit like a pop-up tent, meaning it’s very portable, easy to set up and break down. Apparently it’s a popular idea: The makers had a Kickstarter goal of raising $33,000 to get the SPUD into production; with a month left to go they’ve already raised more than $440,000.

The first full tear-down of Apple's 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar has concluded, with confirmation of a non-removable SSD, and as expected the computer has little possibility of user repairability.

f you’ve not yet used or created any IFTTT “recipes,” the holiday season is as good a time as any to start. After all, who wants to take valuable attention away from a New Year’s Eve celebration to post a greeting to your social media followers?

If you’ve never heard of IFTTT, it stands for “If This, Then That.” And it’s a free service that connects other services and invokes automated actions, such as auto backup of your Instagram photos to Google Drive. Automated IFTTT tasks used to be called “recipes,” but they are now referred to as “applets.” IFTTT says the new applets offer more functionality than recipes and developers can reportedly integrate them into their products more easily.

With Command-Tab Plus, you use icon numbers to quickly select and switch between apps. To do that, use a shortcut to open the switch window and simply press the app number on the keyboard.

When using Command-Tab Plus, it displays only the icons of the apps running on the current display or space. This means it isolates the apps in one space, and the apps in other spaces. However, you can disable this function in the app's settings.

By default, Command-tab Plus hides the icons of all inactive (hidden) apps. This function allows you to quickly switch between the apps you’re using at the moment. The Command-Tab Plus settings let you enable the hidden apps to be shown, so the inactive apps icons will be marked (semitransparent) and displayed at the end of the list.

This is a bit of a long post, too multi-faceted to do it justice with a few call outs. But this one paragraph resonates big time:

To me, an iPad in notebook mode — connected to a keyboard cover — is so much less nice than a real notebook. And the difference is more stark when compared to a great notebook, like these MacBook Pros. There are advantages to the tablet form factor, but no tablet will ever be as nice as a notebook as these MacBook Pros. I also prefer MacOS over iOS for, well, “doing work”. I think I’m more productive on a Mac than I am on an iPad. I can’t prove it, but even if I’m wrong, the fact that I feel like it’s true matters. I always feel slightly hamstrung working on an iPad. I never do on a Mac (at least once I’ve got it configured with all the apps and little shortcuts, scripts, and utilities I use).

I love the idea of the Touch Bar, happy to have more functionality on my Mac. But the key element that keeps me on my Mac is the idea of a pointer I...

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has invalidated the asserted claims of three Smartflash media storage patents, including two that were part of a $533 million jury verdict against Apple in 2015, finding most of them to be abstract, reports Law360.

In separate America Invents Act covered business method reviews, the PTAB on Nov. 10 effectively invalidated all the claims that remained of the three Smartflash patents in the instant cases, following a series of related decisions in recent months, the article adds.

Filed in 2013, the original lawsuit claims that the iTunes Store, the Apple App Store, the Mac App Store, and Apple's other transaction services infringe on three Smartflash patents that cover "data storage and...

The gang at iFixIt, which tears down tech products to look at their innards, has released a “teardown” of the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.

As Apple's second OLED-equipped device, the Touch Bar MBP also shares some family ties with the Apple Watch. iFixIt found two custom Apple chips right where the Touch Bar interfaces with the logic board. Presumably one of these is the T1 processor powering the Touch Bar. Teardown highlights include:

The MacBook’s speaker grilles don’t actually cover the speakers—and the grille holes aren’t even holes. They’re mostly cosmetic dimples (with a few tiny holes reserved for a pair of tweeters). Instead, the sound is directed through vents on the sides of the computer and into your earholes.

With MagSafe gone, a wayward step on the power cord is more likely to damage your ports—so, it's...

CNET reports that Apple has secured exclusive first access rights to "808," a documentary film that explores the birth, popularity and influence of the Roland TR-808.

It's narrated by Apple Music's own Beats 1 DJ, Zane Lowe, and features a variety of interviews with the likes of Pharrell, Questlove, Rick Rubin, Afrika Bambaataa, David Guetta and more. The doc originally premiered at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival. Those who subscribe to Apple Music can watch it now. It will be available Dec. 19 to rent or download from iTunes.

This is one of my favorite iFixit teardowns. More humor, and more surprises (like step 13, where we learn something interesting about the speaker grills, no doubt a basic difference between the 13″ and 15″ models).

Earlier this year, Apple promised it would clean up its iOS App Store by removing outdated, abandoned apps, including those that no longer meet current guidelines or don’t function as intended. That great App Store purge now appears to be underway, according to new data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower. The company found that app removals increased by 238 percent in October 2016, with mobile games seeing the most deletions.

Apple had originally stated that the deadline for developers who wanted their outdated apps spared was September 7, 2016. However, Apple didn’t take immediate action during the month in terms of large-scale removals.

That seems to have changed in October, when 47,300 apps were removed from the App Store, Sensor Tower discovered.

And while it’s true that Apple does delete apps on a regular basis, this figure is around 3.4 times higher than the monthly average of 14,000 for the months of January through...

Steven Aquino, who writes a lot about accessibility, writing for The App Factor:

As I reported last February, the initial version of Apple Music was mired by a confusing design and, more importantly, less than stellar accessibility. These issues weren’t severe enough to drive me away from the product, but they certainly put a damper on an otherwise solid experience.

Then came good news. With the advent of iOS 10 came an all-new, totally redesigned Apple Music that addressed both of my biggest gripes about 1.0. Streaming and downloaded music are now clearly marked, but the big win for me is the app is much more visually accessible.

And:

From an accessibility perspective, it’s the bigness and boldness that make Apple Music shine in iOS 10. First and foremost, the Dynamic Type is pervasive throughout the app. Headers are ginormous. Whereas previously I had trouble reading Editors’ Notes and track listings, I now can read them fine. The larger text is...

It seems amazing that the official Reddit app has taken this long to add iPad support following the iPhone-only launch back in April, but it’s finally happened as the company has launched version 2.0. iPad support is the only new feature, alongside bug fixes for Reddit Live …

A piece in the WSJ outlines why president-elect Trump’s campaign promise to ‘get Apple to start making their computers and their iPhones on our land, not in China’ is impractical.

Tim Cook has previously said that the vocational skills needed for Apple manufacturing simply don’t exist in the USA, and suppliers have emphasised the sheer scale of the challenge.

When Jabil Circuit, the world’s third-largest contract manufacturer by revenue, needed to quickly ramp up production of its electronics components a few years ago, the company was able to add 35,000 workers in China in less...

Google has just released PhotoScan, its new app for Android and iOS that allows you to scan your prints, eliminate any glare you’d get from taking a picture of them and organize them in digital form.

The PhotoScan app allows you to take an initial photo of a photo, wherein it recognizes the four corners of the frame and displays circular overlays on each corner of the scanned image. You then point your phone camera at each circle, create a robust scan of the image, and PhotoScan gets to work from there.

A number of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s units have been strangely – and automatically – shutting off over in China.

Recently, iPhone customers in the country have been complaining about the problem to the China Consumers Association, the group said in a statement on Tuesday. The shutdowns occur when the phone’s battery charge drops to between 60 and 50 percent.

The issue continues to persist in spite of updating to the latest version of iOS and has occurred in both cold environments and at room temperature. After the automatic shutdown, the phones will also fail to turn on without connecting to a power supply.

A “considerable number” of users have contacted the China Consumers Association with the same issue according to the group.

Sites that repeatedly violate Google's safe browsing policies will be classified as repeat offenders, the company said. A small number of websites take corrective actions after Google displays alerts on their landing pages warning visitors that they're harmful. However, they typically revert to violating the policies after Google goes through the process of verifying that they're safe and removes the warnings. Under the new plan, Google's warnings will appear on the sites of repeat offenders for at least a 30-day period.

In the summer, I spend a lot of time in my sister’s swimming pool, playing with my nieces and nephews. I’ve wanted to take photos in the pool (including underwater) of all of us as we play, but I’ve never had a waterproof case. That may change in summer 2017, as I now have a Wetsuit Impact from Dog & Bone.

The Wetsuit case is also shock and dust proof, which makes it tempting to use as a full-time case. However, there are some issues with sound quality (more on this later), which is why I’ll only be using the Wetsuit Impact when my Apple smartphone and I are in the water.

The case is made from silicone, polycarbonate, and rubber for a triple layer of shock protection. It utilizes a two-piece design for ease and speed of assembly. It features a rubber bumper for a second layer of protection. The folks at Dog & Pony says the Wetsuit Impact — available for the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, iPhone 7 and iPhone 7...

One slightly surprising spec in the new 15-inch MacBook Pro line-up is that even the base model got an AMD GPU. Previously, Apple has offered only integrated GPU in the base model, reserving discrete graphics for the higher-specced models.

John Gruber noticed that the ArsTechnica review explains this: it was the only way to allow the machine to drive two 5K monitors. And the reason for that is that Apple had to use something of a workaround to achieve it …

The new Universal Clipboard feature in macOS Sierra and iOS 10 allows you to copy content, including text, images, photos and video from one Apple device and paste it in another. For example, you can browse a recipe on your Mac and paste the ingredients right to the grocery list on your iPhone.

The cool thing about Universal Clipboard is that you don’t have to turn on any settings for it to work. It just happens automatically as long as all your Mac and iOS devices are on the same Wi-Fi network. Also, make sure that Bluetooth is enabled on your iPhone and/or iPad.

With these steps implemented, you can copy on one device, go to another, and paste the data (text, photos, or videos) into another. And, as mentioned, you’ll need to be running iOS 10 and macOS Sierra to take advantage of Universal Clipboard.

Much of the internal component layout has been adjusted to accommodate the inclusion of the Touch Bar. Apple’s latest laptop scores just 1/10 for repairability as Touch Bar is difficult to replace and the battery is glued into the case. Interestingly, the new speaker grilles on the 13-inch model appear to serve no function and are purely cosmetic …

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sound is just as important to how we experience the world as how we see it -- that's why a team at Disney Research is working on a computer vision system that can not only recognize what an image is, but h...

To help expand its grocery delivery service quickly, Amazon teamed up with Morrisons, the UK's fourth biggest supermarket chain. It's allowed the online retail giant to add lots of fresh and frozen products to Amazon Pantry and Amazon Fresh, as well...

You won't have to go to a dedicated, tech-focused firm to get investment help from machines instead of humans. Wells Fargo has revealed that it's using SigFig's "robo-advisers" to offer guidance to investors. The sometimes troubled bank will launch a...

Tuesday November 15

In the wake of releasing more tools to combat abuse on its service, Twitter has banned the accounts of a number of "alt-right" users. That includes the head of the National Policy Institute (NPI), Richard Spencer. The think tank describes itself as "...

Content creators who have been testing the waters of Twitch's new Uploads Open Beta can now wade in just a little deeper -- the gameplay streaming site has announced a slew of improvements to the manual upload feature, including increased tag charact...

What started with Mandarin Chinese is expanding to English; French; German; Japanese; Korean; Portuguese and Turkish, as Google has increased the languages its Neural Machine Translation (NMT) handle. "These represent the native languages of around o...

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Ubisoft might pride itself on Watch Dogs 2's plausible game world, but it looks like the open world title might be a little too realistic... and one player is paying the price for it. Sony suspended NeoGAF forum member Goron2000 from the Sony Enterta...

As the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar starts to make its way into the hands of consumers, macOS apps continue to be updated with support for the new function display. Next on the docket is popular email client Airmail, which today was updated to version 3.2 with support for the Touch Bar…

Facebook's Connectivity Lab today released its high-resolution population maps for Malawi, South Africa, Ghana, Haiti and Sri Lanka, with the promise to make more datasets available over the coming months. The population maps are a joint effort betwe...

Apple has secured exclusive first access rights to "808," a documentary film chronicling the impact the Roland TR-808 programmable drum machine had, and continues to have despite its discontinuation 33 years ago, on the music making world.

Google just illustrated one of the advantages of having an app-centric television service like Fiber TV: you can refine the entire experience through a simple software update. It's trotting out a new version of the Fiber TV app that will help you fin...

Apple's new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models are trickling in to the company's retail stores, though it appears only select flagship locations are being granted early access to the hotly anticipated laptop.

As predicted, it happened: On October 28th, Chinese oncologists at Sichuan University were the first in the world to insert CRISPR-modified cells into a patient suffering from an aggressive form of lung cancer, according to Nature. The journal report...

yoink! writes: The integration loop is complete. Apple's, admittedly very fast, PCIe storage modules are now built right into the main boards of their 15-inch, Touch Bar-equipped, Retina-screened, Thunderbolt 3-ported, MacBook Pros. A few forum posts over at MacRumors reveal the skinny on the quiet removal of the last user-upgradable component of their professional-series laptops. From the report: "MacRumors reader Jesse D. unscrewed the bottom lid on his new 15-inch MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar and discovered, unlike the 13-inch model sans Touch Bar, there is no cutout in the logic board for removable flash storage. Another reader said the 13-inch model with a Touch Bar also has a non-removable SSD. Given the SSD appears to be permanently soldered to the logic board, users will be unable to upgrade the Touch Bar MacBook Pro's flash storage beyond Apple's 512GB to 2TB built-to-order options on its website at the time of purchase. In other words, the amount of flash storage you...

Blizzard has been teasing the second post-launch Overwatch character, Sombra, for months -- cryptic clues and leaks have been floating around since the first extra character showed up. At last, though, she's here. After about a week of public testi...

Facebook and Google have amended their internal policies regarding advertising on fake news posts in response to pressure from users and a growing controversy within the company. There are mounting concerns that the presidential election may have been influenced by unvetted fake news stories trending on the network during the past few weeks of the cycle. Some of the news stories that appeared in Facebook's trending topics section were found to contain misleading or completely false information that may have influenced voting behavior.

Automotive startup, Lucid Motors dropped by the LA Auto Show with its super-secret sedan today. Because it's electric and doesn't have a traditional engine taking up space, the company has designed the car to have a smaller footprint that a luxury se...

At the LA Auto Show today, BMW announced that its car-sharing service, ReachNow is expanding to Brooklyn starting today. The city joins Seattle and Portland as municipalities that have access to BMWs and Minis for one-way rentals within a set geograp...

The highest ranked university in the world will soon join prestigious institutions like Berkeley, Harvard and MIT in offering free massive open online courses (MOOCs). Starting in February 2017, Oxford University will partner with nonprofit online le...

Apple has a reputation for releasing "revolutionary" products that carry higher price tags than competing products. Today, the company hasn't made that reputation any better as it has released a "$299 coffee table book" that contains 450 photographs of Apple products. The Verge reports: It's a hardcover edition, bound in linen, and is available in two sizes: $199 for a smaller 10.20" x 12.75" version, and $299 for a larger 13" x 16.25" edition. The book is simply titled Designed by Apple in California -- a name that somehow manages to be both humble and incredibly pretentious at the same time. The photos inside are all new images shot by Andrew Zuckerman, and will show off 20 years of Apple design "in a deliberately spare style." In a press statement, chief designer Jony Ive described the book as "a gentle gathering of many of the products the team has designed over the years," and hoped that it would serve as a "resource for students of all design disciplines." The book is...

It's no secret that Snap Inc. (née Snapchat) has been thinking about selling stock to the public, but it looks it has officially -- and quietly -- pulled the trigger. According to a report from Reuters the ephemeral messaging company confident...

Software Updates via MacUpdate

EtreCheck 3.1.5 - For troubleshooting yo...

EtreCheck is an app that displays the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to... Read more

WALTR 2 2.0.8 - $39.95

WALTR 2 helps you wirelessly drag-and-drop any music, ringtones, videos, PDF, and ePub files onto your iPhone, iPad, or iPod without iTunes. It is the second major version of Softorino's critically-... Read more

Carbon Copy Cloner 4.1.12 - Easy-to-use...

Carbon Copy Cloner backups are better than ordinary backups. Suppose the unthinkable happens while you're under deadline to finish a project: your Mac is unresponsive and all you hear is an ominous,... Read more

Dropbox 16.3.27 - Cloud backup and synch...

Dropbox is an application that creates a special Finder folder that automatically syncs online and between your computers. It allows you to both backup files and keep them up-to-date between systems... Read more

Microsoft OneNote 15.29 - Free digital n...

OneNote is your very own digital notebook. With OneNote, you can capture that flash of genius, that moment of inspiration, or that list of errands that's too important to forget. Whether you're at... Read more

Spotify 1.0.44.100. - Stream music, crea...

Spotify is a streaming music service that gives you on-demand access to millions of songs. Whether you like driving rock, silky R&B, or grandiose classical music, Spotify's massive catalogue puts... Read more

SpamSieve 2.9.27 - Robust spam filter fo...

SpamSieve is a robust spam filter for major email clients that uses powerful Bayesian spam filtering.
SpamSieve understands what your spam looks like in order to block it all, but also learns what... Read more

VueScan 9.5.62 - Scanner software with a...

VueScan is a scanning program that works with most high-quality flatbed and film scanners to produce scans that have excellent color fidelity and color balance. VueScan is easy to use, and has... Read more

Fantastical 2.3.2 - Create calendar even...

Fantastical 2 is the Mac calendar you'll actually enjoy using. Creating an event with Fantastical is quick, easy, and fun:
Open Fantastical with a single click or keystroke
Type in your event... Read more

PCalc 4.4.4 - Full-featured scientific c...

PCalc is a full-featured, scriptable scientific calculator with support for hexadecimal, octal, and binary calculations, as well as an RPN mode, programmable functions, and an extensive set of unit... Read more

Latest Forum Discussions

Christmas is fast approaching and that means it's time to prepare for Santa's yearly pilgrimage around the globe. Christmas Eve is an exciting time as parents help their kids get ready to welcome Santa. You've got the cookies and milk all planned... | Read more »

Galaxy on Fire 3 and four other fantasti...

Galaxy on Fire 3 - Manticore brings the series back for another round of daring space battles. It's familiar territory for folks who are familiar with the franchise. If you've beaten the game and are looking to broaden your horizons, might we... | Read more »

The best apps for your holiday gift exch...

What's that, you say? You still haven't started your holiday shopping? Don't beat yourself up over it -- a lot of people have been putting it off, too. It's become easier and easier to procrastinate gift shopping thanks to a number of apps that... | Read more »

MyTona, based in the chilly Siberian city of Yakutsk, has brought a little festive fun to its hidden object game Seekers Notes: Hidden Mystery. The Christmas update introduces some new inhabitants to players, and with them a chance to win plenty of... | Read more »

PINE GROVE 1.0
Device: iOS Universal
Category: Games
Price: $1.99, Version: 1.0 (iTunes)
Description:
A pine grove where there are no footsteps of people due to continuous missing cases. The case is still unsolved and nothing has... | Read more »

Niantic teases new Pokémon announcement...

After rumors started swirling yesterday, it turns out there is an official Pokémon GO update on its way. We’ll find out what’s in store for us and our growing Pokémon collections tomorrow during the Starbucks event, but Niantic will be revealing... | Read more »

3 reasons why Nicki Minaj: The Empire is...

Nicki Minaj is as business-savvy as she is musically talented and she’s proved that by launching her own game. Designed by Glu, purveyors of other fine celebrity games like cult favorite Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, Nicki Minaj: The Empire launched... | Read more »

Clash of Clans is getting its own animat...

Riding on its unending wave of fame and success, Clash of Clans is getting an animated web series based on its Clash-A-Rama animated shorts.As opposed to the current shorts' 60 second run time, the new and improved Clash-A-Rama will be comprised of... | Read more »

Price Scanner via MacPrices.net

Never Settle for Low Performing Wifi With iOS...

AppYogi Software has announced the release of WiFi Signal Strength Status App 1.0, the company’s new utility developed exclusively for macOS. WiFi Signal Strength Status App features a unique, single... Read more

DietSensor, Inc., a developer of smart food and nutrition applications designed to fight diabetes and obesity and help improve overall fitness, has announced the launch of its DietSensor app for... Read more

Best Buy has dropped their price on the 64GB Apple TV to $159.99 including free shipping. That’s $40 off MSRP.
32GB Apple TVs are on sale right now for $98 on Sams Club’s online store. That’s $51 off... Read more

12-inch Retina MacBooks, Apple refurbished, n...

Apple has restocked a full line of Certified Refurbished 2016 12″ Retina MacBooks, now available for $200-$260 off MSRP. Refurbished 2015 models are available starting at $929. Apple will include a... Read more

Apple has Certified Refurbished 13″ MacBook Airs available starting at $849. An Apple one-year warranty is included with each MacBook, and shipping is free:
- 13″ 1.6GHz/8GB/128GB MacBook Air: $849 $... Read more

Apple refurbished iMacs available for up to $...

Apple has Certified Refurbished 2015 21″ & 27″ iMacs available for up to $350 off MSRP. Apple’s one-year warranty is standard, and shipping is free. The following models are available:
- 21″ 3.... Read more

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